📚 Educated
Book Title
Educated
(non-fiction | memoir)
Author
Tara Westover
Review
“We are all more complicated than the roles we are assigned in stories.”
This memoir felt more like a fiction novel rather than a non-fiction book.
Educated focuses on the elements of Tara Westover’s life experience, as she recalls her journey of living in Idaho under the influence of her Mormon fundamentalist family. Tara was 17 when she received her first official education. Through education, she was able to perceive her life through a new, unbiased lens. This perspective on her own life left her struggling between family loyalty and her vision for a better, ‘normal’, life.
Tara Westover’s writing style includes the perfect level of description that allows the reader to fully immerse themselves within her inspiring story of self-invention and overcoming adversity.
“Choices, numberless as grains of sand, had layered and compressed, coalescing into sediment, then into rock, until all was set in stone.”
“I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others - because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.”
“Curiosity is a luxury reserved for the financially secure: my mind was absorbed with more immediate concerns, such as the exact balance of my bank account, who I owed how much, and whether there was anything in my room I could sell for ten or twenty dollars.”
This last passage is something that many university students would empathize with. I am so very thankful for the education system in Canada - their support for students that are financially underprivileged is an investment with boundless returns.
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